It’s every manager’s nightmare. You’ve got a high profile project and a fast time frame that hits a logjam due to a personality conflict within the team. Or perhaps you’ve inherited some team members with some long standing differences and no desire to resolve them. Meetings become tense, fingers get pointed, and everything’s more work than it should be.
There’s no doubt about it - conflict can throw a monkey wrench into everything.
Although it’s so pervasive, it’s difficult to estimate the total cost of each workplace conflict. But let’s look at some of the known factors:
There are many types of conflicts within the workplace - usually over resources and goals. Some of those can be arbitrated by management by reallocating resources and adjusting the goals and expectations accordingly.
While employees can be moved between projects and deadlines can be moved, it’s more difficult to command different personalities to cooperate with each other just because management says so. This requires a different type of approach.
According to the Management Development Institute, understanding and being considerate of the different personalities and their value systems is the key to keep interpersonal working relationships running smoothly.
The truth is, not all conflict is bad. In order to get the very best decisions and strategies, team members should feel comfortable asking probing questions, testing other people’s theories, raising objections, and offering other solutions.
WIthout a safe atmosphere of communication that can handle healthy dissension, an organization could end up with groupthink, where team members keep their questions, doubts, and opposing thoughts to themselves.
Groupthink is notorious for making a group or organization susceptible to bad decisions with unfortunate outcomes. This can happen anytime that team members:
The KeepWOL platform encourages honest discussion and exploration. Team members get accustomed to asking follow up questions to drill down on the original answer - but in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.
This team-building virtual game was created from a proven communication methodology that encourages curiosity, listening skills, and psychological safety in the workplace. Because it’s a fun game (instead of the dreaded slide deck), real bonds can be formed without feeling forced or like they are going through the motions just to please management.
In sessions as short as 90-minutes, you can nurture the type of communication and collaborative exchange of ideas that comes from a deep mutual understanding. This can be practiced over and over - in as many KeepWOL sessions as you need.
Normalizing curiosity and willingness to probe for answers in a collaborative way can translate into healthy team dynamics where members can work out concepts without feelings of vulnerability and defensiveness. As a result, you’ll have a team willing to thoughtfully work through conflicts to find the best solution.
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There is a deep-seated cultural belief that tells us being vulnerable can lead to our downfall, especially in the workplace where colleagues can be competitors and supervisors are eager to weed out the weak.
